He points to a tiny ledge all the way up high above a river of lava. I clasp my hands together, shift my body through space, and teleport to the spot. A quick wave and I teleport back.
“Show off,” he remarks after he points out no less than five more treacherous spots that I teleport to with ease.
“Come on now,” I tease. “Can’t you find me a challenge?”
“Fine. Turn into a cloud of bats. One giant bat. One the size of my thumb. My thumb isn’t that large, Romelia.”
Bats don’t giggle, but I still try to anyhow as I shrink down some.
“Smoke,” he dictates next.
Fog generation. Tyra used to complain, but I find it so easy now. Transformation is one trait that’s shared between vampires and demons, but demons can take it further than vampires can.
“A cat, a dog, a butterfly… Ah, so pretty. An insect. I know! A rat!” Uncle claps at that. “A raven, a flea… Please, stop jumping. A mouse, a horde of locusts. Yourself! Yourself!”
I turn back into myself and laugh and laugh. “I’m sorry, Uncle Argon, but you practically begged me to swarm you!”
“I suppose I did,” he says with a laugh.
“What next?”
“We aren’t done with transformation,” he says quietly.
His tone shocks me, and I wait with bated breath.
“How about a wolf?”
I stare at him, and my heart, if I still had one, would beat far too fast.
“Uncle, I don’t know…”
“I know you might not want to, but why not try?” he asks gently.
“I…”
I close my eyes. I’ve done everything else my uncle has asked of me. At the very least, I’ve attempted until I’ve learned and even mastered the ability.
Thinking of Julian, of us both being wolves, of our racing alongside each other in a field of flowers… Before I know it, I’m not just a wolf. I’m a howling wolf, my howl so very desperate and filled with longing that when I revert back to myself, I’m crying.
Uncle Argon says nothing at all, and he lets me be. After a few moments—minutes? Hours?—I finally recover.
“Are we done with transformation now?” I ask a bit darkly.
“Almost,” he promises. He hands me over the sword from his belt.
I’ve always wondered why he carries a weapon on him, how it came to be here, but I haven’t asked. I suppose I haven’t questioned it because it doesn’t really matter. For the most part, we’ve kept to our particular spot in Hell, and no one bothers us. Occasionally, I’ve seen other demons and Hellhounds but only from afar, so it’s not as if he needs the sword for self-defense.
“Turn into your swarm of bats again,” he says.
I stare at him. “I’ve done that already.”
“Yes, and you’ve turned your clothes into bats too, but try to do the same with the sword.”
Turning my clothes into whatever I changed into has been easy, and the sword proves no challenge at all.
“Very good. Well done, Romelia.” My uncle claps and accepts his sword back. “Now, this is one that you’ve been resistant to, and I understand. You aren’t a typical vampire.”
I run my tongue along my fangs. I’m dead now, so I don’t need to drink blood, but occasionally, I will seek out a Hellhound for a drink. They don’t care for that at all, but I’ve been doing what I need to since I’ve come to this Godforsaken place.
“You’re referring to draining life force, aren’t you?” I ask.
He nods. “Drain mine,” he says quietly.
“Uncle—”
“Do it.”
I hold out a hand toward him. It’s amazing how easily all of this is coming to me. If my father tried to teach me, no doubt I would’ve resisted. I wouldn’t have wanted to succeed, but here, in Hell, I have no choice but to face reality and the fact that I’m a demon.
Within my uncle, I can sense his energy, his life despite his death. It’s a bright red, like a garnet, and I strip some of it, shaving it off. The red glows out of him and enters me, and I breathe out a breath as I can feel my energy increase.
To my shock, the scar on my arm, the one that never healed, as well as the wounds that I took on from Mercy, all of them heal almost instantly.
My uncle nods. “Psychic vampires and demons alike can drain one’s life force. In addition to giving you energy, it can speed up healing as well. All you have to do is feed off the life force of any living creature.”
“Any living creature,” I repeat, glancing around. There’s no vegetation here, just the lava and the reddish stones. “Plants?”
“Plants are alive, but they aren’t a creature.” He shrugs. “Honestly, I don’t know if you can feed on a plants’ energy. Maybe. I do believe fairies and sprites and dryads can so it is possible.”
“No more?”
“Not draining life force.” He smiles kindly, and I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that he caused so many deaths. Million and millions. Twenty-five million deaths.
“Next?”
“Psychokinesis,” he instructs.
Telekinesis.
He tosses me a stone, and I use telekinesis to cause the stone to skip around and tap and burst lava bubbles one after the other.
“A geyser,” he says, pointing to a bubble forming a few feet away.
The lava listens and obeys, rising up in a rush, furiously funneling upward. I get the feeling that there’s stone above us, that we’re in some kind of underground cave. Maybe Hell is within the Earth’s crust. I don’t know, but the geyser goes up high, higher, tall, taller, and I can’t see the top.
“Now create a second geyser,” my uncle says, “but conjure your own fire for it.”
I gape at him, and the lava geyser falters and collapses onto the river.
“I know you hate fire because it could have killed you while you lived, but you’re dead. It can’t hurt you now.”
“I have flesh. It can burn me,” I protest.
“I won’t let it,” he says. “Besides, if someone tries to use fire against you, you need to know how to manipulate it so that you can’t ever be burned.”
With a deep exhale, I concentrate, but I can’t. I’ve been on occasion able to conjure fire but just tiny sparks, enough to possibly light a candle, nothing more.
After a few attempts, I throw up my hands and gape at the fireball hurtling toward my face.
I drop to the ground, but the fireball changes direction to follow. With a shriek, I hold out my hand, and I can feel the energy of the fire, feeding it, making it grow, and I yank the source away. The fireball spurts and dies before reaching me.
But another fireball and another come at me, and somehow, this time, I’m not as afraid. If I can make the fire disappear, why can’t I manipulate them in other ways?
So I do. I toss them up and down as if I’m juggling them, and even though sweat dots my brow, I conjure a third so I can truly juggle them, without touching them of course.
“Brava!” My uncle claps. “You’ve done splendidly! Do you have any questions?”
I toss the fireballs into the lava river, one, two, three. “Yes, actually. Does time pass here the same as it does on Earth?”
“No.”
I nod slowly, not wanting to know if it occurs faster here or slower. “What’s the point in teaching me all of this?”
“My dear, I’ve taught you teleportation,” he says. “That’s the most important demonic ability for you to learn and master.”
“Yes, but…”
My mind races. Is he trying to hint at what I think he’s hinting at?
“Why haven’t you teleported out of here?” I blurt out.
“Oh,” he says with a wave of his hand, “I did. I tried to get back at your backstabbing father, that dastardly brother of mine, but he cursed me, and I can no longer teleport.”
I gape at him, confused. “You’ve teleported all the time,” I protest. “When you first taught me, you—”
That’s all he says, but it’s what he doesn’t say that leaves me breathless.
He can’t teleport out of Hell.
Does that mean that I can?
Chapter 24
Julian
My grip on Romelia tightens, and I pause right as I’m about to lay her down to rest on the floor of our cave. That her father is standing here, in our sacred place infuriates me. How did he know to come here? Who is he, and why is he here?
“You’ve foiled a lot of my plans,” he says slowly, pushing off the wall and stalking toward me. “I’ve threatened my daughter time and again, but I never could raise a hand against her. My fault. My weakness. I know better now. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself, and since my daughter is dead because of her own choices, well, I’ll just have to go on living forever. Who needs an heir after all when you’re a demon? I can survive just fine without her. Without anyone.”
I don’t want to release my hold on Romelia, but it’s quite clear that this time, her father wants a fight. He didn’t before, for whatever reason. Ironically, I wanted the fight earlier, and now, I don’t. I don’t want to fight, not him, not anyone. I want all of the fighting to end, the battles, the wars, all of it. I’m sick of the death, the dying, the bloodshed.
“Don’t tell me that you’ve grown soft, wolf,” her father snaps. “Come and face me, or are you that frightened? Thought better of it?”
“Romelia’s father—”
“Mr. Shade.”
I roll my eyes. “Her name is Covenshade.”
“Her name was,” he corrects. “Coven is for her mother. I am not a vampire, am I?”
“No.”
“No,” he repeats, baring his fangs, “but I do like to drink blood from time to time. It’s been an age since I last tasted werewolf blood. Do you mind indulging me?”
“I do mind,” I say calmly.
With as much reverence as I can, I lie Romelia down, shifting her close to the wall of the cave opposite her father. I intended to have her reclined more in the center, but not now, not when her father is bound and determined to spill my blood here in this hallowed place.
“You can try to best me all you like,” he says, “but you will fail. You’re too young, too weak, too inexperienced.”
“I killed Constantine.”
“So you did, but he was also young and weak and inexperienced. It’s just as well she’s not alive to see you become a killer.”
“Considering you’re the one who sent that piranha after her—” I start.
“Did I now?” He throws back his head and howls with laughter before giving me a wide, fang-filled smile. “I am not in the mood to talk. Let’s get this done and over with. I have you to kill and a war to oversee.”
My wolf longs to come out, but I don’t really want to fight. Maybe I should just let her father strike me down. I did kill Constantine. Will that be enough to get me to go to Hell?
But the professor died trying to tell me about blood rising.
“Before we begin,” I say, holding up my hand, “why did you kill Professor Marius?”
“You mean the traitorous vampire who wed my daughter to you against my wishes?” Her father’s fangs gleam. “Don’t you think that’s reason enough?”
“He was a good man.”
“No. No vampires are good.”
“You’re wrong about that,” I claim.
“Every vampire—”
"Whenever you say every, you look like a fool. There are always exceptions, and your daughter was one. Admit it. You're glad she's dead because she was a disappointment to you. She never did anything you wanted her to, and she was too good for you, too good for this world! She had finally found happiness despite you and your plans for her, and what did you do? Did you rejoice? No, you applauded her death, didn't you?"
The slap comes swiftly, so hard that my neck cracks, and his claws grip my jaw as he turns my head back around to face him.
“You will stop talking now,” he says grimly, and he flings me against the cave wall. Rocks and chunks of stone fall down around me and onto my back as I drop to the ground.
Dazed, I force myself to stand as he stalks toward me, looking every bit like an apex predator. I feel very much like the rabbits I hunted and killed earlier.
Unlike the rabbits, I don’t hop. I stand my ground, and when he next lashes out at me, I duck underneath, slide to one side, and deliver a hook punch right to his kidney.
The demon doesn’t react at all, just brings his arm forward, and then his elbow cracks against my eye. Blinding pain rifles through me, and I stagger back. If his elbow landed on my nose, he would’ve shoved bone straight through to my brain.
His chuckle echoes off the cave walls. “Are you really trying? Or do you think to join my daughter in death? Do you love her that much that you would rather be dead than to live without her? Touching, perhaps, but I don’t see it that way.”
His hand snakes out. I go to duck, but he's too swift, and he lifts me into the air, his claws around my throat. His hair remains perfect, and he's flawless—his suit and pants without a wrinkle, no sweat on his brow. I haven't hurt or hindered him at all, and he's already made me bleed.
At least my fingers aren’t broken like they had been in the dream.
Broken fingers…
“My daughter would have come around. Today was to have been her wedding day to Constantine whether she wanted to marry him or not. Your little ceremony wouldn’t have stopped my plans. Romelia should have said, ‘I do,’ to the one I chose for her.”
“Her life. Her choice. Her heart,” I spit out.
"Is that so? Well, her choice cost Romelia her life and her heart, so…" Her father shrugs. "I suppose there is that. Do you honestly think she's happy now? She must be in Hell, and I can't think of a place she would hate more. She always did pretend to not be a vampire or a demon. Never drank from the vein. What kind of a mutant of a vampire was she? A disgrace to both vampires and demons alike. It's just as well that she's dead because of the disappointment she's caused, but no matter. Her death and Constantine's, for that matter, won't change anything. The war is still going strong, and the werewolves and the vampires will all die. Yes, all of them, including the living vampires. I've changed my mind, and I have you to thank for that, Julian. The living vampires are weak, too weak to be allowed a place of honor in the new world order. In fact, they don't deserve any place at all. If the living vampires do succeed in their mission and wipe out the werewolves, well, the demons and I will just have to end them. What do you think about that? A world without any vampires and werewolves. A world where demons rule. Hell on Earth."
“Other demons have tried,” I barely manage to say aloud, coughing and choking between the words.
“Yes, they’ve tried and failed, I know.”
“You’ll…”
“No, I won’t fail. Everything has been planned to the last detail, but you see, I’ve known my daughter a lot longer than you have. I knew she would resist. I planned on having her killed on her wedding night. You see, I thought long ago that I might have to kill the living vampires, so I planned all along to frame Constantine for her murder so that I could have an excuse to kill him at the very least. If need be, I would have extended that death warrant to encompass all living vampires. I should have gone with that plan from the start.”
I gasp and wheeze as he squeezes tighter. As much as I would love to grab one of his fingers, to yank it backward and break it, I can hardly see. I try to feel around for his fingers, but he just shakes me silly, and I flop about in his iron-like grip.
"Oh, come now." He flings me aside, and I fall hard to the ground, my knees and palms aching from the contact, the pain causing my arms to shake. "Aren't you going to at least try to attack me? Give me some sport!"
So I do try. I launch myself at him, and I attempt to pummel him with kicks, punches, bites even. Each attack he bl
ocks, laughing and insulting me all the while, and finally, I give in. I unleash my wolf, but as a wolf, I fare no better. In fact, I fare even worse because I can sense an alien presence in my mind. He’s trying to control me, to tame me, so I not only have to fight him physically but also mentally. Soon enough, I have to concede defeat, and I revert back to my human form, which is so very weak compared to his brute strength. He’s only blocking me, but if he were to counterattack…
Emotionally, all of this is so very draining, and I glance over all the time to see Romelia's lifeless form, and I'll be honest. With every passing second, it seems more and more certain that this is a battle I will lose. Death will come for me, and I will weep in the grim reaper's arms as he or she leads me to Hell.
Chapter 25
Romelia
My hug with my uncle lasts so very long, and my tears soon drench his shirt.
“Romelia,” he says with a laugh. “Why are you crying?”
“Because.”
“You’re ready,” he assures me. “I don’t know what you’ll find when you leave, but you’re ready to face anything and everything.”
“Not without you,” I say.
“Yes, my dear. You have to go, but I can’t. I’m stuck here.”
“You might not be able to teleport out of here, but…” I grin at him and lift onto my toes to kiss his cheek.
“Your happiness means a great deal to me, and if you had been my daughter…” He shakes his head and sighs, his teeth actually teeth and not fangs. “Well, there’s no point in wishing the past had been any different.”
“Uncle… I can’t thank you enough.”
“I can’t thank you enough,” he counters. “You made my time here bearable, and you trusted me. You allowed me to help you when you refused your father the same courtesy, and I can’t tell you what that means to me.”
I can already feel the pull of my body back on Earth. How is it that I never felt it before? Maybe because I never attempted to drain life before, but I can sense my essence, my body. It hasn't decayed any, so I must not have been dead for long at all. I haven't been in Hell long at all, but it feels as if I've spent years and years with my uncle here, almost another entire lifetime.
Blood Haven: Year Three: A Mayhem of Magic World Story Page 15
